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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24046759">I Forgot Where We Were</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreculturelesspop/pseuds/moreculturelesspop'>moreculturelesspop</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Childbirth, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Pregnancy, Sex, graphic birth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:49:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24046759</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreculturelesspop/pseuds/moreculturelesspop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean encounters a hunter from the past who is expecting. He takes her back to the bunker to give birth. </p><p>Set Mid S9.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Forgot Where We Were</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’d recognised that sound anywhere. The motel room is dimly lit, but she can see a beam of light through the gap in the curtains. She peeks through that gap to see the Impala park outside. The unmissable sight of Dean Winchester gets out his car, he’s on the phone, yawning and looking like someone who had just won a fight.</p><p>She opens the door to the motel, her hand firmly on the pistol in her oversized hoodie pocket. “You come here often, Mr Winchester,” she purrs at him. She leans against the door frame, her ankles crossed.</p><p>“Natalie!” he says with a grin, a duffle bag over those broad shoulders. He drops the bag on the porch and gives her a big hug. He had no right to age as well as he had, especially in this line of work. “You on the hunt?”</p><p>“No, but I presume you are.” He’s grown a beard, she’s not mad at it.  </p><p>“Bastard demon,” he says with another yawn. “What brings you to the toilet seat of nowhere?”</p><p>“I was hoping no one would find me.”</p><p>“You probably should stop opening motel doors,” he says with a cheeky laugh. He’s looking over his shoulder to see the line of weaponry, the excessive warding, the medical bag on the bedside table. “You in trouble?”</p><p>“Nature of the job,” she shrugs. He pushes his way in because there was no problem in the world Dean Winchester thought he couldn’t fix. She closes the door behind him, this was going to go a few ways and none of them involved him leaving. “I got an angel issue.” It was best to be upfront when confronted with a Winchester.</p><p>“Who hasn’t,” she sits on the edge of the bed, her body no longer equipped for sitting on hard motel room chairs. “What they do?”</p><p>“I fucked one. Well, I didn’t know he was an angel before I fucked him.”</p><p>“Any good?”</p><p>“Surprisingly average.” He pulls a face before sitting down beside her. Zerachiel was no Dean Winchester. In the decade or so that she and Dean had their encounters, he never failed to satisfy her. He could go all night, not satisfied with himself unless he made you scream over and over. She would leave fingernail indents in his back, as she fell apart time and time again. He would bite your lip, and you would pull his hair, your leg flexed over his shoulder.</p><p>“So, what? You too much for him to handle?” He’s using that low voice he does minutes before your panties go flying across a motel room. She takes his hand and guides it under the hoodie to the prominent bump on her stomach. His mouth forms an ‘o’ shape in shock.</p><p>“Yeah,” she says looking down. His cold hand isn’t leaving her stomach.</p><p>“Milkshakes and fries?”</p><p>“I wish.”</p><p>“Have you researched-“ She knows all the terms, she knows all the theories, knows all the case studies.</p><p>“No,” she cuts him off. She places her hand over his. “I don’t want to know if it’s going to rip me apart, or cause the apocalypse or come out breathing fire. I don’t want to know.” She’s had the thoughts all mothers have of their child’s first words and what type of outfits she would dress them in but she’s also had the image of a half-breed ripping itself out of her womb. She’s not sure which is scarier, demons she can handle, babies she cannot.</p><p>“You look tired,” he says. The hand on her stomach rises to her face, he gently strokes her face taking in the freckles and the scar above her top lip. She can’t but lean into her touch, it had been so long. He had probably never seen her without makeup, that war paint she wore so the boys would take her seriously was rarely removed. Without the red lipstick she was vulnerable, an orphaned girl playing soldier with the boys.</p><p>He lets her sleep whilst he takes watch, she knows he’s more tired than she is but he doesn’t take no as an answer. When she wakes up in the early hours, the baby kicking at her internal organs, he’s asleep on the chair with his head tipped back, gently snoring. She softly places a hand on his shoulder and whispers his name. He jumps, his hand going to the gun.</p><p>“Come to bed, get some sleep.” He obliges, he’s so tired he’s nearly forgotten why he’s there. He slides his jeans off and gets into bed beside her. She didn’t realise how much she had missed human contact until he’s behind her radiating heat. He wraps his arms tight around her, a new tactic in protecting her, perhaps. The baby likes it, their movements calm until the sun comes up and the world comes alive. She wants him to rub her back, hold her belly, nuzzle that beard into her breasts. She sighs and falls asleep, his light snores in her ears.</p><p>                                                                           *</p><p>She feels his erection against her ass as the sun starts to beam in through the crack in the curtains. She feels a new rumble in her stomach, she’s not sure if that’s a new side effect or arousal. She rolls over to face him, hoping her breath isn’t too bad. He nuzzles his bearded cheek into her shoulder, purring against her tanned skin. “Is Sam okay?” He grunts in response. When it comes to the Winchesters, you don’t get involved in their family feuds.</p><p>She leaves him to sleep as she showers. She hates seeing herself naked. Her body had always been a powerful tool, but now it was an incubator. Her bump is small and compact, but she still hates looking at it. She doesn’t remember a time where every muscle in her body was finely tuned, they rippled as she held a gun and flexed as she did her morning push-ups. She misses the morning workouts, the late night sex marathons, the long runs to clear her brain. She spends too long in the shower, the tepid water the only thing that could ease her back ache.  When she exits the bathroom, a towel around her torso and one holding her brunette hair up, he’s getting dressed.</p><p>“How long you been cooking?” he asks.</p><p>“Seven months.” He’s not expecting that answer, her deceptively small bump surprising him.</p><p>“I’ve always wanted to fuck a pregnant woman.”</p><p>“Probably one you’ve knocked up though,” she quickly responds. He thinks about it and shrugs.</p><p>“You should come with me.”</p><p>“I don’t need you to fight my battles.” She doesn’t want to be having this conversation wearing nothing but a towel.</p><p>“I’m not going to fight your battles. I know you well enough to know you don’t need my help. But what are you going to do, travel state by state until you pop in a grimy Arizona motel room?”</p><p>She laughs because that was her plan. She had worked out the most unpredictable route, ignoring every instinct she had. “You got a better one?”</p><p>“We have this place, safest place in the country. A bunker. It’s comfortable, warm, safe.” She trusts him, and there are very few she could say that about. The Winchesters have had her back since she was a teenager. Dean was the first man to put his tongue in her month, John was the first people to put her dislocated shoulder back into place, Sam was the first man to stick up for her hunting skills. She’d be dumb to turn down his offer down.</p><p>On the drive she sleeps peacefully for the first time in months, the engine of the Impala luring her to sleep, her head against the cool glass window. An angel had to have a death wish to attack her in the passenger seat of the Impala. Her body feels heavy, and she slumbers until she hears the engine quiets.</p><p>Sam doesn’t looking overly impressed to see his brother. “Natalie!” he says. His smile was exclusively for her.</p><p>“She’s gonna stay for a while,” Dean grunts, bouncing down the stairs carrying her holdall and his own over each shoulder. “You okay with that?”</p><p>“Is everything okay?” And Dean’s gone, bow legs bouncing down more stairs and out of sightline.</p><p>“I’m pregnant,” she tells Sam.</p><p>“Congratulations,” he says with a shallow smile, he looks wary.</p><p>“Thanks. It’s a long story.” She follows Dean slowly, less limber than she used to be. The building is beautiful, a maze of tiles and arches. She feels like she’s in the Ministry of Mayhem.</p><p>“You can sleep in here,” Dean tells her. The room is bare, but it’s clean and comfortable. He’s right, this was a much better place to birth an unknown hybrid than an Arizona motel room. He throws her bag onto the bed. “I’ll get some sheets.”</p><p>She grabs his arm as he goes to leave the room, “Are you okay? Really?”</p><p>“Peachy,” She raises her hand to his stubble cheek. “Make yourself at home and ignore the miserable man in there.”</p><p>“I wanted to get rid of it. I really did. I didn’t mean for it to end up like this. I had an appointment, but I didn’t want to piss them off. Didn’t want to start a war.” That was the lie she told herself, at least.</p><p>She spends the first few days sleeping and eating, not spending much time with the brothers. The boys go out on hunts individually, eating purposely at different times. She still doesn’t ask. There is calmness to the bunker that eases her nerves, finally she doesn’t wake up in the night in cold sweats, she doesn’t dread going to sleep anymore. She lies in bed and counts the kicks, feels the movements and flutters, tries to enjoy the feeling of growing another life. She never expected it, not because she didn’t want it but because she had sustained enough injuries that she was surprised any of her organs worked as they should.</p><p>Dean and her start a tv watching routine on the days when he’s not on a hunt. It started with <em>Seinfeld</em> reruns and then <em>The Simpsons </em>before they moved onto<em> Cheers</em>. It started by him joining her one afternoon, sat in separate seats with no words spoken. He looks awkwardly at her as she struggles to find a comfortable spot. Dean Winchester, slayer of monsters and all things that go bump in the night, terrified at a baby bump and a woman with back pain.</p><p>On the second day he sits closers to her on the sofa. He leaves a gap between them, occasionally looking over at her. She bridges the gap, using his shoulder as a pillow. He rests his head on top of hers, and they carry on watching the show together.</p><p>On day three her back ache is making it hard to sit, and her ankles are making it hard to stand. Without words being spoken, he starts rubbing circles on her back. She murmurs that the pain is lower down and he immediately obliges. She perches on the edge of their sofa as she he rubs her back gently, she wishes he’d stop treating her like she was breakable. They had fought before, she had never been scared to punch him in the face when he deserved it. She considered this their form of foreplay. She tells him he’s an ass, he makes a sexist comment and she’d punch him, then they have amazing shower sex. The idea he was now helping her with the laundry and gently rubbing her back was alien.</p><p>“Have you thought about names?” he asks.</p><p>“I didn’t think I’d be alive long enough to name them.” It’s a dark comment but it’s the truth. She heard that farmers never named the pets their slaughtered, you don’t want to get too attached. He stops rubbing her back and she instantly misses the contact. She turns to look at him, to look into those sad green eyes.</p><p>“I won’t let anything happen to you.” He’s too earnest, too open, too vulnerable. Dean Winchester wasn’t supposed to put a hand under your chin and talk to you with such softness.</p><p>On day four he rubs her feet. She usually hates her feet being touched, but they were throbbing with pain and she just couldn’t get comfortable. Is this what normal women, with loving human partners, were doing in their third trimester. Dean would be the best dad, she had never met a better candidate but years of John Winchester had traumatised him into thinking he would fail.</p><p>“You ever want kids?” she asks. She doesn’t mean to express those thought out loud, but she’s so worn out her brain has lost all its barriers.</p><p>“People like me don’t have kids,” he says gruffly. From where she was sat, he sure looked like someone who would have kids. She understands his sentiment, her father was a slain hunter, her mother had abandoned to escape the life.</p><p>                                                                                                                                       </p><p>                                                                     *</p><p>She lies in bed, a pillow stuffed between her legs to ease the pressure, and hears the boys fighting. She can’t make out the words, just the echoing of angry tones. She told Sam about the situation and he promises to research all he can. She doesn’t really want to know what his findings are. She puts on some earphones and leaves them to it. She must have fallen asleep because when she wakes up Dean is putting the television in her room.</p><p>“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he says. She takes the earphones out and puts them on the bedside table with a clutter.</p><p>“You and Sam okay?”</p><p>“Not really. Words have been said. We’ll get over it.” She struggles to sit up, feeling like a crab that has been flipped onto its back. He’s staring at her bump, usually she hid behind hoodies and baggy t-shirts she had collected on vacation but her shirt was tight across her belly.</p><p>“I know I’m huge,” she says, rubbing the slowly changing shape of her stomach. She wasn’t one of those women with huge round bellies they could hardly see over but when she touches the hard mound, it didn’t feel like her body.</p><p>“Yeah, you are,” he smiles. “I figured you weren’t a fan of our sofa, thought you might want to watch TV in here.”</p><p>“Much appreciated,” He climbs into bed next to her, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Make yourself at home,” she laughs.</p><p>“Never needed an invitation into your bed before.” She leans in and kisses him, she thinks it’s going to be a quick peck but it’s a deep and longing kiss. The same kiss they shared as teenagers on a motel room bed, the kiss that ruined boys for her. She fantasied about losing her virginity to him, in the end it was a messy drunken affair that she barely remembers. When she finally did get her moment with him, too many years later, it was worth the wait.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she quickly say as they break away. “Really fucking inappropriate.” She rests her head on his chest and he rubs circles in her hip as they watch Seinfeld. They don’t kiss again, too scared to see where the moment will take them.</p><p>She notices a pattern of Dean fighting with Sam and then seeking solace in her bed. His arms curling around her frame tighter each time. He starts to sleep her bed. At first they’d nap together, and he’d leave during her first nightly trip to the bathroom, then he would stay and get up before her, until she finds herself waking up every morning beside him. Their lives stopped existing outside of that bedroom. They ate crossed legged on the bed, he started showering in the on suite and she slept in his arms. Neither talk about the pregnancy, he treats her as if she had a back injury that put her on bed rest.</p><p>Her heart stops the first time she gets a pain. She ignores it, and it goes away. She Googles that they’re called Braxton Hicks and are totally normal. The second time Dean notices and tells that she’s probably dehydrated.</p><p>“Have you been researching pregnancies?”</p><p>“Researching is what we do,” he says with a shrug.</p><p>“You didn’t watch the videos, did you?”</p><p>“Oh yeah. I’ve seen some things that were… insightful.” She has to laugh at the thought of Dean and Sam sat watching birth videos in horror.</p><p>That night she decides that she should probably research was going to happen to her body in the next few weeks. It was clear the angels were waiting for her to birth the thing before killing her. She reads about childbirth as Dean snores beside her. She tries to find articles about birthing your own baby alone, but they all start with sombre statistics about complications and deaths. She found some advice but the general overarching theme was: don’t do it, call an ambulance.</p><p>“I don’t think you should sleep here anymore,” she tells him the next morning. They’re both hiding under the covers, like children reading past their bedroom.</p><p>“Do I snore that bad?” the smile is just teeth, he’s hurt.</p><p>“I don’t want you to be here, to see the birth.” All the talk of amniotic fluid and vernix is enough to make her queasy and it was her body.</p><p>“Not happening, sweetheart. You’re going to a hospital or you’re going to have to deal with me.”</p><p>“I can’t go to a hospital, I can’t endanger people like that!” He kisses her forehead, and she knows that she is stuck with him.</p><p>When she gets up and finds she’s lost her mucus plug, she suddenly realises that this isn’t a possibility, a maybe, a case that was happening to someone else. This was her life. She puts the lid down on the toilet and sits on it, contemplating her next step. Instead of clearly thinking out a plan of action, she bursts into tears. She must have woken Dean up with her sobs because he’s soon rushing into the bathroom.</p><p>“Are you okay?” he asks, eyes wide with mania. She laughs because how did she end up in the same motel as him. If she had gone left not right and missed him, where would she be? “Is it starting?” he crouches down in front of her, his hands on her bare knees.</p><p>“No,” she chokes. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”</p><p>“Hey, hey, hey,” he hushes, placing a hand on her cheek. “You have never been scared of a thing in your life. You spent most of your youth telling me this.”</p><p>“It’s all too much.”</p><p>“I’ve saved the world from an apocalypse. Fought every nasty you can think of, hell I’ve faced every nightmare you can’t think of. I can handle some angels asking for a paternity test,” It’s not the angels that scare her. If the baby rips her apart then she’ll be too dead to feel sorry for herself. If the baby is normal, and wants to slowly push itself out of her body and be a living human creature, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. Quit the game for the apple pie life? Stay here, slowly falling in love with Dean Winchester? “I got this angel, he’s a good guy, I told him and he’s gonna stick around. Any trouble and he’s here.” She learns forward and melts into his arms.</p><p>“I didn’t get an abortion because I didn’t want one,” he sobs into his shoulder. “I thought this could be my only chance. I could do something good with my life. Give life to something.”</p><p>“I know,” he whispers into her hair. Death had weaved its way into their lives, saturating everything they touched. No one could promise it wouldn’t happen again, but she had to give it a go.</p><p> </p><p>                                                                               *</p><p>The pain feels different. Dean is grocery shopping and Sam is on the hunt. The pain is new, not intense but new. They’re dull and repetitive and she suspects this might be the real deal. She pulls out the bag, she had packed it long before arriving at the bunker. It had a pair of scissors, a mirror, a shower curtain, a plastic sheet and a swiss army knife. She finds clean towels under the bathroom sink, she had made sure there was enough last time she had done the laundry. She goes to the kitchen to sterilize the items but instead finds herself overwhelmed by the need to clean it.</p><p>“Your body is preparing,” she heard a voice say from behind her. There was a black line in between the tiles that no scrubbing was removing. Cas is stood behind her, wearing the same outfit he always did. Did he own lots of those coats or was it the same one each time? “I am sorry to startle you.”</p><p>“It’s fine.” It was fine. She had suffered from worse period cramps, all of which were hidden to not show weakness. Maybe she had suffered from so many injuries and beatings that her pain threshold could take labor.</p><p>“You should get some rest.”</p><p>“Can you feel if they have it?” she blurts out. “I mean, the baby, does it have angel mojo?”</p><p>“I cannot feel any,” he walks towards her and places a hand on her belly. “He is doing well though, and in the correct position for birthing.”</p><p>“He?” she stutters, her lip jutting.</p><p>“I am sorry if you did not know. But he is healthy, if that is what you are concerned about.”</p><p>She suddenly feels tired and overwhelmed. She lies down and thinks about the healthy little boy that was growing inside her. She lies counting the kicks until she falls asleep.</p><p>                                                                           *</p><p>
  <em>Dean has her pushed against a wall of a bathroom somewhere. It’s one of their favourite types of bathroom that only has one toilet and sink, no one can interrupt them. Her legs are around his waist and she can feel his dick hard against his jeans. She’s been wet since she saw him break the shapeshifter’s neck. He lent against the hood of the Impala and asked if she wanted a drink, she nearly asked him to cut the crap and bend her over that goddamn car.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He places on top of the sink and removes her jeans. She can smell her sex and she knows he can, he smirks and rubs his fingers against your clit. Their lips barely detach from each other, they move in sync, dancing a familiar routine. “Fuck I missed you,” he whispers against her parted lips. He fucks her against the sink, the angle hitting all the spots she likes. She gasps with every thrust, his jeans pooled around his ankles, her nails digging into his shirt. It was animalistic, primal and so real.</em>
</p><p>She wakes up to a pop and a gush of water. She lies there frozen in panic. She is especially relieved Dean wasn’t sharing the bed with her. She clears the sheets and leaves them in a soggy pile in the corner of the bathroom. She replaces the sheets with a cheap plastic one and leaves some towels at the foot of the bed. The pain has become a little more intense, but it was manageable. Her back pain had worsened so badly she couldn’t lie on the bed. She takes comfort in pacing the small room, the TV on in the background for company. The pain is every fifteen minutes, causing her to double over before it fades again. She thinks she hears voices in the bunker but she finds it hard to concentrate on anything but the worry. She takes a long shower, finding the hot water comforting. She leans against the walls and stays stood there until her hands start to wrinkle and her legs almost buckle. She runs her hands over her belly one last time, it has changed shape, but she won’t miss it.</p><p>She doesn’t know how long it has been since her water has broken; she thinks she may have watched a whole series of <em>Parks and Rec,</em> but time was running at a different speed. She paces up and down until the soles of her feet wear out and her knees are sore. With every contraction she would lean over and breath as they washed through her body. They were increasing with pain and she had to brace herself against the wall to stop herself toppling over.</p><p> A stabbing contraction takes her by shock and she crumbles to her knees. She stuffs the plaid shirt into her mouth to stifle the animalistic noise she was making. Her shirts no longer felt comfortable, so the last few weeks she had taken to wearing his. They were snug over her breasts but covered her belly. She had once worn his shirt before, when he had thrown hers into a service station toilet in the throes of passion. Sam looked bemused but said nothing as they nodded goodbye in the parking lot.</p><p>She can’t control the noises she is making, the shirt barely containing the grunts. Dean opens the doors, expecting to join her for a comfortable afternoon tv marathon. Instead, he finds her on all fours, on the floor, grunting into his shirt.</p><p>“Shit,” he cries, running to be by her side.</p><p>“I’m fine,” she says.</p><p>“Yeah, you look it,” he laughs. He places a hand on the small of her back and she’s glad she put clothing back on. “How long have you been like this?”</p><p>“Too long,” she pants. “Water’s broken.”</p><p>“Why didn’t you come and get me? Cas said I should leave you to get some sleep,” He helps her up from the floor and to the bed, but it’s too soft. She finds the hard wooden chair that sits in the corner of the room is more comfortable. He pulls to the bedside so she can sit, whilst Dean perches on the side of the bed. She doubles over, her head buried into his sweatpants clad crotch, as he rubs her back. She should be embarrassed by this position. By her sweaty bun and unevenly buttoned shirt, by the guttural noises she was making, but she wasn’t.</p><p>They talk in between contractions. They compare kills, reminiscence of hunters that have been and gone, talk about their unorthodox childhood. He makes her laugh with stories about a young Sammy and Bobby, about their sex life, about terrible FBI names, and the pain becomes a little bit more bearable. When the contractions hit, she dives her head into his thigh and grips onto his hand. She’s not sure why women choose to do this more than once, have multiple natural births, but she supposes it hurts less when it’s not a magical baby that defies all of nature’s orders.</p><p> “I think we should take you to a hospital. We can ward it.”</p><p>“Women have been doing this for years. Can’t be so difficult.” Women have also being dying in childbirth for years. She grips onto his hand as another contraction hits. She hasn’t been monitoring them, she should be counting how long they last but she’s not sure she could spell her name in that moment, let alone keep count.</p><p>She dozes between contractions, her cheek pressed against his cotton clad legs, his fingers running through the baby hairs that would never fit into a bun. She faintly remembers Cas coming in with ice chips to keep her hydrated. She doesn’t want them so Dean places them on her neck, letting the ice water run down her back.</p><p>“Can’t you do something about this!” Dean shouts.</p><p>“I cannot get involved in this process. Childbirth is a very complicated process that the body must do alone.” She’s not sure she wants another angel poking around down there, anyway.</p><p>She starts pacing again, hoping gravity could help her out. She leans against Dean when the contractions hit. “Pant through it,” he says. She doubles over and rests her cheek against his chest, his body is too warm and she wants to be left alone, but she also wants him to never leave her side. Time drags on and there is no time to breathe in between the contractions.</p><p>She finally collapses on the end of the bed, she has to sit, her back on fire and her body spent. She gives up, this baby wasn’t ever going to leave her body, and she wishes the angels had killed her months ago. “I can’t do this anymore.” Dean crouches in front of her, dark circles under his eyes and his shoulders high with tension.</p><p>“You’ve got this,” His voice has lost his confidence, he doesn’t really know if does have it. “I remember on a hunt once, you had on this red leather jacket and you stabbed a demon without a moments hesitation, then you walk away and got back into your Chevy. You told me to stop looking at your ass as you walked away, middle finger waving in the air, fuck if I wasn’t in love.”</p><p>She laughs nervously. His timing really was wonderful. She tries to unbutton the shirt, it’s sticking to her body but she doesn’t have the strength. He gently unbuttons it, revealing her trembling belly and full breasts. He doesn’t manage to shake her arms out the sleeves as another contraction hits and she grabs onto his bicep in pain. Tears pool in her eyes and she now knows this is one fight she cannot win. “Let’s get these off,” his fingers hook in the waistband of her panties. She shakes her head and grabs at his wrist, “Sweetie, I’ve taken these off more times than I can count. I’ve had my head in their more times than we can both count.” He was right, he loved to have his head between her legs because it gave him power. She was argumentative and stubborn, until his tongue found its way into her pussy and suddenly she was his, melting into him with no willpower left. He slides her underwear down, lifting her hips a little. She doesn’t want to know what it looks down there, but she doubts he’ll ever want to fuck her again.</p><p>“Cas!” he yells. She looks him in the eyes and finally she can see he’s freaking out. They have a conversation about delivering babies, but she blocks it out. She looks down and she can visibly see her belly ripple with each contraction, like her body was being possessed by a supernatural lifeform. She doesn’t want to think about the fact two men are having a debate about her vagina.</p><p>“Do you feel the urge to push?” the angel asks. She looks up at the ceiling, she had read that pushing too soon could cause tears and that you should only push when you absolutely had to. She had been resisting the urge to push for a while now, she could feel the baby’s head bulging through her birth canal, she could feel the emptiness of her body and the flutter of movement by her opening. She lets out a guttural moan that she is sure no human should be making. Dean runs to her side, and she knows he’s making one of those stupid pleading faces to Cas. He sits behind her, a leg each side of her sweating body, his arms under her armpits and hoists her up to the bed. He sits against the pillows, holding her close to his chest whilst Cas places the towels between her legs. She closes her eyes and leans back into Dean, her head lolling back onto his shoulder. He whispers encouragements into her ear but she’s too busy trying not to think about the way Cas is looking at her.</p><p>“I can’t do this,” she repeats to herself. This is how she dies. Of all the injuries, the near-death experiences, the car crashes, the broken bones, and she dies in childbirth. She dies in an unknown bunker in Dean Winchester’s arms. Silver linings.</p><p>“You need to push,” Cas says. He pulls at her knees, encouraging her to open her legs further apart. Her body is now pushing, whether she likes it or not. “I can see the head,” She think she’s going to throw up, she can feel it, the head burning at her entrance. “Push on the next contraction.” It’s like every horrible pain she has ever felt. It’s like being shot and stabbed at the same time, like being punched and bitten, like period cramps and broken bones, like being showered by broken glass and burned alive. Dean is kissing her sweat-drenched hair, whispering encouragement in her ear. Why couldn’t her birth control had stopped working on the nights she spent with him?</p><p>There is a foreign hand against her, but she no longer cares. He’s massaging her entrance with cool hands, easing out her baby. She concentrates on panting out the head, she can hear Dean mimicking her breathing pattern behind her. Her whole pelvis is on fire as the baby crowns. She hears the boys talking, but she can’t take in the words. She screams as her baby’s head stretches her, tears rolling down her face. She expects the baby’s head to be born quickly but it slides in and out, moving back every time the contractions lessened.</p><p>“You’re doing good,” Cas says, one hand on her knee. She wants to snap her legs shut and ease the pain, stop the foreign hand and burning pain. A contraction hits again and she feels like her body is being split in two. And then her baby’s head slides out of her with and she can breathe for what feels like the first time in days.</p><p>“Fuck,” she gasps.</p><p>“Don’t push,” Cas says. His hand is inside of her, checking for a cord.</p><p>“Fuck you.” She can feel the baby turn within her and it would be fascinating if it wasn’t so painful. She leans back into Dean, feeling his chest shake with nervousness. She mentally gives herself a pep talk, she had made it this far. With two pushes she feels the rest of her baby slide out of her body alongside a gush of fluids. She leans back against Dean, he lets out a sob and kisses her forehead. She struggles to open her eyes, but she sees Cas holding a normal looking baby coddled in a bloody white towel. She wants to ask if he’s okay, alive, not in pain, but she’s too weak. She wants to hold her arms out and hold him, trace his perfect nose but instead she closes her arms and falls against him. There are frantic words exchanged, and she feels liquid gushing out of her. If she opened her eyes she’d say Cas’ white shirt drenched her blood, the sheets and towel beneath her crimson. She had dreamt about this, bleeding to death, only in her dreams she was always alone in a motel room. Her back falls flat against the bed, the warmth of the Winchester gone as he jumps to the foot of the bed. She’s shaking, her body suddenly cold despite the sweat running down her body. She closes her eyes, the tiredness suddenly taking over her body.</p><p> She wakes to an empty and clean room. It smells like bleach, and the bloody towels and soaked sheets are gone. She wonders if it was all an elaborate dream, a trick, but her body feels like it had lost three or four rounds. She places her hand on her belly, it’s still round but it’s softer and smaller. She staggers to the bathroom, guiding her way down the bed with her hands, and has the most painful pee. She’s been bleeding a little but it could be much worse, so she has heard. Someone has put a pad in her panties and slid them on her as well as peeling his shirt off her frame and replacing it with a baggy t-shirt that she had never seen a Winchester wear. She changes the pad and hopes it wasn’t Dean who had done it. She has a much needed shower, she could smell the sweat washing off her. The hot water feels good, soaking into her aching bones. For the first time in months her back isn’t in pain, sore but bearable. She can almost fit into her clothes, but she puts his shirt on anyway.</p><p>She walks through the bunker, relieved to stretch her legs to see the three boys sat in the kitchen.</p><p>“Hey, you’re awake,” Sam says, holding her baby. It looks so tiny swaddled amongst blankets she didn’t buy. She didn’t buy baby stuff, she realises, she expected neither of them to live long enough to need bottles and formula and a crib. She had diapers and a blanket, yet the room was filled with bottles and formula and a blanket with a giraffe print. Dean rushes to her side and guides her to a seat. He doesn’t look like he’s slept but he’s happy.</p><p>“You should be resting,” he says, sitting beside her. “You had a rough one.”</p><p>“Don’t I feel it,” she chuckles. She looks at her baby, blued eyed and pale skin, thick dark hair and the most perfect button nose.</p><p>“You were very near death,” Cas quietly says. “There was haemorrhaging, it was very worrying. You lost a lot of blood.”</p><p>“You used your mojo on me, didn’t you?” she asks.</p><p>“You’d be dead otherwise,” Cas tells her directly, which she appreciates. She thanks him, and for once she actually means it. They tell her she was sleeping for hours, after a nearly 24-hour labor and delivery. She already feels guilty she has missed so much of her son’s life.</p><p>It doesn’t matter when she finally takes her baby in her arms, Dean helping her position him correctly. He’s dressed in a little onesie that declares him a ‘little monster’. Monsters she could handle, she always knew that.</p><p> She doesn’t know what her future will hold but in that moment she was alive, her baby was alive and she was going to curl up and sleep in Dean’s arms for the next few nights.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments always welcome...</p></blockquote></div></div>
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